Accomplice to Ruin
by Error Sophius
Summary: An Imperial grunt plays his own small part in the end of the world.
1. Dead Friends

**While this is meant as one continuous piece, it's a bit long for a oneshot, so I've broken it up into three parts for posting.  
**

* * *

Official records state that fifty Imperial Guard soldiers fell at the battle of Tzen, burned to death by the fire witch. The number alone doesn't really tell the whole story. All were officers from the Magitek Armored Corps. Not grunts; mech pilots, all of them. An entire military organ ripped away.

The records list each of the victims by name and rank. They're missing a few.

I know this because a friend of mine died at Tzen, and he isn't in the records. Because he wasn't there to fight. He was there on furlough; his mother had died the week before. I spoke to some of the other survivors a few days later. They told me a local with the bearing of a soldier and an Imperial helmet appeared to assist when the shit started flying, and got incinerated towards the end of the battle. None of them recognized him. He was from a different division. My division. The recovery team that combed the battlefield a day later never identified him, so he never made it into the record.

I last saw him two weeks before that day. We were having a drink to celebrate my promotion to major, and with it the privilege of piloting a Guardian-class magitek suit. His name was Alexi Baker. The records list him as AWOL after furlough was up. I'd insist on having them corrected, but I'm not supposed to have access to those records in the first place. Clearance is for colonels and above. I was just darkly curious.

We weren't even there for a combat mission. It was a demonstration of force to the locals, nothing more. Magitek suits have a…pacifying effect on people. We should never have had to fire a shot.

Some demonstration.

Later, the fire witch showed up at an army briefing, wearing a Slave Crown, silent and pliable. We were given explicit orders not to take revenge. _Very_ explicit. I guess even the top brass could see how we felt. When you're in the Imperial Forces, you grow accustomed to thinking you're invincible. After all, we conquered an entire continent, and our magitek suits are feared the world over. Even the grunts take one measure of pride and two measures of confidence, just fighting beside the mechs. An entire troop of them, vaporized in minutes, simply _doesn't happen_.

Tzen showed us how fragile even the best can be. It was a hard lesson, and I cried in bed at night sometimes afterward. Humiliating. Unlike most of the soldiers here, I'm married, which entitles me to go home some nights instead of having to sleep in the barracks. Her name is Laurel, and I hate for her to see me cry. But it helped to know I wasn't alone. You'd think when you're in the Forces, you'd get used to the idea that the people around you are quite likely to die. But we'd won too many battles and lost too few men, for a long time. Somewhere along the line we forgot that we were mortal.

I told myself at that briefing that if she ever broke loose of that crown, I'd be the first on the scene with my Guardian. It's one of the latest magitek models. Some of the older suits are quicker, and there are newer ones that can fly, but the Guardian was designed above all else to be _impervious_. It would be able to withstand her fires. And it was a suitable vehicle for revenge. I had lost a friend, and I knew at least a half-dozen others among the fallen. But more than that, I had lost that sense of imperial inevitability. I wept from broken confidence, and I never forgave her for that. Even years later, after her deeds that day had long been reduced to insignificance, I carried the wound.

Eventually the fire witch disappeared on a mission to Narshe. Six months later, after killing more of our troops during a battle in the hills just north of that town, she showed up in Vector again. This time without her crown. But also without her fire. It was in the aftermath of the Esper attack, with the outer city in ruins and morale at an all-time low. The Returners showed up a couple days later. We think they intended to attack, but there wasn't anything left worth fighting when they got here. Even my Guardian took its fair share of punishment.

It was like Tzen, but worse.

Rumor defined the next several days. The first one I heard was that Emperor Gestahl intended to surrender, but it only lasted a day. It was supplanted by rumors that Gestahl would step down and one of his generals ascend the throne. Exactly which general varied with the telling; I heard Celes, and Kefka, and Leo. More than a few looked favorably on that last. Leo was always well liked by the troops. He may have been a better rally point than Gestahl himself, though saying so was unwise.

Whether the newly ascendant general would make peace with the Returners or marshal the army to throw them out depended on who the speaker was and how many drinks he'd had. I met one man so drunk that he thought Kefka would ascend, marry Celes, and then surrender. Specifically in that order, for some reason.

Word was eventually passed down the chain of command that there would be peace talks between the Empire and the Returners, with the common goal of preventing further war with the Espers. Command never mentioned the fire witch, but the rumor mill did its thing there, too. Those rumors were more consistent, and more accurate; they told me that her name was Terra, and nowadays she was with the Returners. That was the first time I heard a name put to her. Rumor also said she wasn't killing anybody. I wasn't sure what to think of that. I was a beaten man at the time, and the passage of a year or two had dulled the memory of Tzen. Hate was low on my list of priorities.

So I thought, at least. She came to the barracks shortly before the peace talks officially began, with some of the other Returners. Seeing her face to face again, unchained, was a shock of the worst sort, and revenge welled up in me again. They talked with the soldiers in small groups, quietly. I wondered what they were up to, and my heart burned.

When they came to talk to me, I lunged for her throat.

I'm not sure what I was thinking, and it seemed like they were ready for me anyway. One of her companions, a big blond guy who looked like he could out-muscle a magitek suit, caught me by the arms and held me fast. I pulled away and grunted with the strain; it was like trying to pull down a brick wall.

"Relax," the wall said, "We're only here to talk. Emperor's request." Some of the other soldiers looked our way, eyes twitching back and forth between me and the fire witch, hearts weighing loyalty and camaraderie against fear; and I realized that no one there wanted to die that day.

I didn't either. I relaxed, and he let me go.

There were four of them: the fire witch, the wall, a Doman warrior, and a nobleman of some sort. "I have nothing to say to you," I said, stiffly. Emperor's request or not, just because they were there to talk didn't mean I had to listen.

The Doman gave me a tense look that said I-really-want-to-hurt-you, and I got a good look in his eyes. The rage I saw there gave me nightmares that night, but at the time it made me feel calmer. When they turned away and found someone else to speak to, I thought about it for a while. I'd seen eyes like that before: in the mirror, after Tzen.

I wasn't there for what happened at Doma, but of course I'd heard of it. Kefka poisoned the Doma Castle water supply. The hate in that Doman's eyes made the story more real to me, and I started to think that maybe, maybe, what we'd done at Doma was right up there with what the fire witch did to us at Tzen. Even if Kefka had acted alone, he was one of ours. It was a sour, unpleasant thought.

I stamped it out.

o o o

A few days later I found myself in the extraordinarily odd position of sharing drinks with a Returner. The Emperor, as a gesture of good faith, had allowed some few hundred of their people to stay in the capital and Imperial Citadel. As a return gesture, the Returners promised not to stage an attack or commit acts of sabotage within the city. Spying wasn't mentioned, since everyone assumed that would be going on between both sides anyway. Of course, cessation of hostilities on a global scale would be dependent on the outcome of the talks.

Put a few soldiers in a bar together, and there's two things that can happen. Either a fight breaks out, or sooner or later they'll be swapping war stories. My drinking partner said his name was Martin, but I never did find out if that was true or not. We both fought at the battle of Maranda — myself under general Celes Chere, he under this mysterious Arvis fellow that we've never been able to catch. We didn't even know they were there at the time. We'd been sent to engage Maranda's militia, not to crush a Returner division. It turned out a lot messier than that. We were repeatedly attacked from buildings supposedly owned by civilians; after the fifth incident Celes ordered part of the southern end of the city torched. It was one of the more brutal moments in what Command later referred to as the Vector Continental Campaign.

It was certainly interesting to hear what it had been like for the other side; apparently, the Returners were there on a recruitment and diplomatic mission, trying to bring Maranda over to their side. When our forces were scouted several miles out from the city, they assumed we were there for them, and responded accordingly by fighting for their lives, wherever and whenever they had the opportunity.

In short, the battle of Maranda appeared to be a series of colossal errors: ourselves not knowing the Returners were there, the Returners mistaking our intentions, and then general Chere responding to isolated resistance as if it were a general civilian insurrection.

So it goes in war.

Some of what I heard from Martin was actually amusing, now that the passage of years had taken the sting off the battle. There were more incidents of friendly fire between magitek units at the battle of Maranda than any engagement before or since. From Martin, I learned why.

"Arvis was leading a group of us through the southern quarter — this was sometime before it got burned down. We got turned around, and ran into some kind of munitions dump or supply camp…I don't know exactly, it looked like your people had it set up as a repair spot for damaged mechs."

"Ah, yeah," I murmured. "Standard practice for field ops. I don't know how you got in though, they're _always_ guarded. And kept well back from the frontline."

Martin shrugged. "I wouldn't know about that. This one was guarded, but only by a half dozen or so soldiers. Anyway, short version is, we stole a couple of mostly working magitek suits, and two of our guys volunteered to run cover with them while we got as many people out as possible. We knew we were losing anyway. Never did see those guys again."

"I'm surprised you didn't just keep the mechs," I said.

"Arvis considered it, but they were in pretty bad condition already. He didn't think we could get them out before they broke down."

"Ah."

"I think they were old anyway. The placards read Proto-2, if that means anything to you."

I whistled. "That _is_ old. I trained on those things back when I first joined the Forces. I didn't realize they'd ever seen combat."

"Maybe that's why they weren't heavily guarded?"

"I dunno. Maybe." I stared down into my drink. "Mind if I change the subject?"

"Shoot."

"What can you tell me about the fire witch?"

"You mean Terra?" Martin looked surprised. "I'd think you'd know more about her than I would. She was one of your people, after all."

I grunted. "Tell that to our men at Tzen."

"Point, I guess." He shrugged. "Well, yeah. We heard about Tzen but don't really know anything except the fifty-man body count."

"Fifty-one," I muttered under my breath. I was still annoyed about that.

"What?"

"Nothing. Go on."

"Well, I hear she's half Esper, and that's where her power comes from. She faced down Kefka personally when he showed up in Narshe. I saw that myself, it was pretty impressive."

"Good," I grunted.

Martin gave me a speculative look. "Um?"

" _Nobody_ likes Kefka, even us Imperials. We could make a year's worth of spare parts from all the screws he's got loose."

Martin laughed at that. "He did seem a bit strange in the head. Maybe it's the magic. But lady Celes isn't like that, and she went through the same procedure, I think."

I gaped.

He noticed. "What did I say?"

"Celes…" I said, grasping for something familiar. "You mean general Chere?"

"Yeah. What's the problem?"

I shook my head. "I'd heard she had magic. Something about applying Magitek techniques to living people instead of machines. I didn't know about Kefka, though. Shit. Shit." I rarely lapse into expletives. "That is the most fucked up thing I've heard all year."

"Well, you better believe it. Terra would've fried him at Narshe otherwise. I hear he's the one that put that crown on her head."

"Shit," I said again, and took a long swallow. "I think I need to get drunk now."

Martin looked at me speculatively. "Yeah," he said, "Sure seems like it."

o o o

I know a guy in Records by the name of Trinn. He's a little susceptible to bribery; that's how I found out about Alexi's AWOL status, so long ago. I looked him up again that night. He's short, stocky, and he's got one of those earnest, honest faces that a cynic would distrust on sight and no one else would ever doubt.

He grinned when he saw me, anticipating the request. "Hey. Whatcha' looking for this time?"

"I need to get into Records again." I hesitated. Still time to back off.

"Sure," he said. "What section?"

"I don't know," I answered. "I don't even know what the project is named. I hear Celes and Kefka have magic. I want to look into that. And the fire witch, come to think of it."

The grin slid off Trinn's face. He was silent for a moment. Then: "You sure about that? That's real heavy. Top Secret section. Over by the magitek compound. Last time might've gotten you in trouble, but if you get caught over in Top Secret, you'll be lucky not to get hung."

"I know. I'll take my chances."

"I think you're crazy, then," Trinn said. "But it's your life. I have a copy of the keys hanging around I can sell you. I'm sure as hell not going in there with you."

"That'll do. What's the price?"

Trinn thought about it for a moment. "Say eight in silver. No, make that ten." The price was high enough that I knew he was trying to discourage me. I fished around in my coin-bag and handed over an alloy half-crown and three silver marks. I winced when he took them. It was about two months' pay.

If anything he looked more nervous. "Okay," he said. "Come on."

Imperial Records was just next door to the Magitek Facility. It was one of the older buildings in the compound, and made of brick instead of concrete and metal. The building itself was some five stories high, with a raised bridge extending to the facility from the third floor. Inside, the lobby was cold and dark at night. Electric lighting was expensive, and flame of any kind was naturally forbidden. There was an imposing ironwood desk that the receptionist would use during the day. To the sides were doors to the offices of various functionaries; in the back was another door leading to the real meat of the place. Trinn unlocked that one and led me through.

We didn't go far together. His office was near the back of the first floor, where the people who do the real work of organizing and filing make their nests, so to speak. He unlocked it with a different key and we entered.

"All right," he said in a low voice. "You know where the bridge is that goes to Magfac? Ah…the Magitek Facility, I mean. Pardon, Records slang."

"I've only seen it from the outside," I said.

"Right," he said. "That bridge goes to Top Secret. Probably because just about everything from Magfac gets filed there. That's where you're headed. There's only one door, and it's on the second floor. You go up the stairs, come out on the second floor, bear right. It's on the far side in the corner. It's supposed to look like the other office doors, but that doesn't actually fool anybody, because it's the only one with a combination lock."

"What's the code?"

"Don't interrupt." Trinn was talking rapidly, his anxiety plain as day. "The code this week is fourteen, thirty, twenty-two." He unlocked a drawer in his desk and pulled out a ring with two keys on it. "There's also a regular lock and a deadbolt. Use these. The section is cordoned off from the rest of the building, and it has its own stairwell. It goes all the way up to the fifth floor. The Esper project stuff is on three. I don't know about the fire witch. Lock up before you come out, or there could be some serious trouble."

"All right. Thanks, Trinn."

"Don't thank me. Just don't get caught. And don't mention my name if you do."

"I won't."

Trinn left with a bit more speed than necessary, and I headed up. There was one guy on second, up late poring over something or other. I sat down at a desk on the far side of the room, near the door I wanted, and watched him while trying to look like I was deeply reading myself. After watching for an hour without him so much as glancing up, I concluded it was relatively safe and stood up. He didn't twitch.

The door to Top Secret was not marked in any way, and only the extra locks set it apart from the offices on the floor. I dealt with the lock and bolt, then the combination, and tried to look like I was supposed to be there.

It opened smoothly and — thankfully — without a sound. I glanced over at the late worker when I turned to close the door. Still no twitch. I closed it as silently as I'd opened it. The only light in the room came from the window, which meant I was alone. I noticed I was holding my breath and made myself exhale.

Top Secret looked more or less identical to Records proper. That shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. There was a filing index booth near the stairs. I opened the drawer and looked through the cards. They were alphabetical by project name, and only seemed to include stuff on this floor. The last card read _Project Ephemeral (counter-espionage)_. Trinn had told me I'd have to go up to the third floor, but it was nice to have confirmation.

Project Esper was the first card in the third floor index booth. The papers themselves took up most of two large oak bookshelves. I pulled out a few and got to work.

o o o

PROJECT ESPER MEMO #39.1 FLAG IMPORTANT - PLEASE RETAIN  
12/19/17

 _Your Imperial Majesty:_

Kefka has shown increasing hostility and instability over the course of the last several weeks and has on three occasions caused serious harm to personnel with his new magic. There does not appear to be any change in his mental faculties directly, but his emotional state has become extremely erratic, especially when impatient with our observers.

I am forced to revise my opinion expressed on 12/1/17. While the first month after infusion went smoothly and Kefka himself has displayed no physical problems in the aftermath, this delayed reaction to the operation could be extremely dangerous to those around him.

I strongly recommend delaying General Chere's infusion until we can examine this issue further. There can be no benefit to this process if the results cannot be controlled.

Cid, E.P. Supervisor

PROJECT ESPER MEMO #39.2 FLAG IMPORTANT - PLEASE RETAIN.  
12/20/17

 _Cid:_

Regarding your request to delay General Chere's Esper infusion: do so if you must, but go no further than two months. I need her to take part in the Albrook campaign, and the infusion must be complete by then. This is a military decision. If manpower is an issue, it can be supplied.

Emperor Gestahl  
First Commander  
Lord of Vector  
Pillar of the Empire

PROJECT ESPER MEMO #42.1 FLAG IMPORTANT - PLEASE RETAIN.  
1/3/18

 _Cid:_

I see no need to inform General Chere of the mechanism of her augmentation. While I understand your concern as her caretaker, I should point out that undermining her confidence would be detrimental to her performance and might prove dangerous in the field. I'm sure you don't want her getting hurt. Moreover, secrecy is essential until the technology has been refined to the point where it can be widely deployed. I don't want rumors circulating through the Forces.

Remember that I speak for the Emperor in this matter.

Prime Minister Koreli

PROJECT ESPER INTERNAL CORRESPONDENCE #183.1  
2/10/18

Cid:

We need more time to ensure that Celes's augmentation goes smoothly. I'm convinced at this point that Kefka's mind-warping (such a pleasant term for insanity, isn't it?) is a result of the injection location and the abruptness of the procedure. Making several smaller infusions over the course of several days should help, as should going through the chest instead of the rear base of the skull. Manifestation will of course be slower, but a slow reaction is better than making another Kefka. I can't be certain of the procedure without more testing, though. You've got to talk to high command about this.

On a related note, I'm becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the nature of our investigations. I had an extended _conversation_ with the Esper Stray earlier today, and it's quite clear that these creatures are both sentient and emotional. We're effectively killing them to enhance our own soldiers with additional — and in my opinion superfluous — capabilities. There is nothing magic-augmented humans can do that our existing m-tek suits can't.

If we can't sort out some of these ethical problems, I'm going to have to request a transfer. I'm sorry, but I didn't sign up for this job to be a monster.

Cheston, E.P. Researcher

PROJECT ESPER INTERNAL CORRESPONDENCE #183.2  
2/11/18

 _Cheston:_

I understand your concerns about the nature of our work, but I have no answers for you. I'm sorry. If you truly can't continue, I'll arrange a transfer as soon as Celes's augmentation is done. The rest of us can monitor her afterwards on our own.

I cannot get us any more time to prepare. The Emperor has personally insisted that we get on with it. We are, I'm afraid, just going to have to do what we can and hope for the best, because that's all we have the opportunity for.

Regarding your comment about magic vs. magitek, you're incorrect. Magitek suits were designed on a similar theory to what we're doing here, but they're limited by their mechanical nature. Magic can adapt as the caster requires. Magitek suits are restricted by their initial design. Moreover, the Emperor would rather put power in the hands of trusted officers than machines, as the latter can be stolen and put to use against us. It's happened before, though the military tries to keep it hushed up. These Returners are causing them more trouble than they let on.

Cid, E.P. Supervisor

PROJECT ESPER INTERNAL CORRESPONDENCE #191.1  
2/30/18

 _To all staff:_

General Chere appears to be recovering fine. You have all worked hard these last few months, and I congratulate all of you on a job well done.

That said, it's not quite over yet. We'll be keeping her under close observation for the next six or seven weeks to ensure that there are no delayed effects, and in particular that she doesn't exhibit the mental instabilities seen in Kefka.

The Emperor has overruled me on her convalescence period, so for the latter part of it she'll be on active duty. Any of you that don't mind a military excursion, please volunteer to observe. Remaining required personnel will be selected by lot. You'll receive double pay for the work.

On a lighter note, you can all take the weekend off, except a skeleton crew of observers for general Chere. I think we've all earned a break.

Cid, E.P. Supervisor

o o o

I sat back a couple hours later, nervous, just a little bit awed, and trying to piece together what I was reading.

It was strangely comforting to know that Kefka's legendary _screwiness_ was a result of his magic. I'd assumed, when Martin told me about it, that they'd augmented him knowing of his mental state. For that matter, I'd assumed he'd always been that way. Certainly he had been for the duration of his public life.

I checked the date on the earlier memos again. It was about right. He'd been used experimentally, and then promoted as a result of the successful experiment. The insanity came later. That was nice to know. I'd hate to think Command knowingly placed a psychopath in the upper ranks.

Come to think of it, I wasn't sure Kefka was technically military. I know he went to Figaro some time back on a diplomatic mission that had somehow turned into a military mission along the way. Or at least the grapevine later said that King Edgar pulled a disappearing act when Kefka tried to burn the place.

I never did find anything about the fire witch. I did find out that Kefka technically was a military general, and that he'd been a member of Emperor Gestahl's personal staff before his augmentation. Also that Cid's team of scientists expected his insanity to get progressively worse. I wondered why Gestahl kept him on staff, knowing this. I wondered if Gestahl wanted it that way.

Kefka had been jailed once the incident at Doma came to light. I wondered, for a moment, if he really had been acting on his own.

If maybe Gestahl wanted to make use of his insanity.

I crushed the thought. Imperial troops do not question the Emperor, even in the privacy of their own heads. I remember one time back when I was a private. My sergeant had been overheard cursing about Gestahl, _in his sleep_. He'd been hung for it.

I gave up hunting eventually. It was well past midnight. I replaced everything where I'd found it and went back down to the second floor. The other late reader was gone when I left Top Secret and locked up. I hoped it really was just someone working late, and not someone from Records security.

I couldn't remember if the entrance to the main stacks had been locked, so I locked it anyway. If I was wrong and it was supposed to be left open, well, hopefully they'd just assume someone made a mistake. It occurred to me that with Returners in the Imperial Citadel, counting on any kind of assumptions from Security was probably a bad idea. But there was nothing I could do about that.

It was too late to go home to Laurel, so I ghosted across the compound to the barracks. Captains and above get their own quarters, thankfully. I slipped in, undressed quickly, and tried to go to sleep. It took a long time. Just as I was drifting off, a thought struck me: _If Kefka has magic, how are they keeping him in that jail cell?_

I slipped into restless dreams.


	2. Live Enemies

A few days later I was called to Command's offices. General Leo was there when I arrived.

"Major," he greeted me. I came to attention and saluted.

"At ease," he continued. "I have orders for you. His Majesty and the Returner leadership have come to an agreement, and a joint expedition is being sent to negotiate with the Espers. They are believed to have headed for Crescent Island. You will join the expedition. Both the Guardian suits and their pilots performed exceptionally well during the Esper attack. It is my opinion, and the opinion of the Emperor, that we will need them on hand in case things go badly."

In a sense, I was flattered. It is good to be recognized, and praise from Leo in particular meant a lot to me. On the other hand, I wanted nothing to do with the peace mission. I'm a soldier, not a diplomat. While I wasn't quite as uncomfortable talking to Returners as I had been, I still thought of them as enemies. Sharing war stories was one thing. Active cooperation was another.

And I _definitely_ wanted nothing to do with the fire witch.

"Sir," I said, trying not to sound like I was _directly_ objecting, "my suit was badly damaged in the attack. The mechanics tell me it won't be in usable condition for at least a week. And," I hesitated. "I am not sure I should say this, sir."

Leo smiled. "Go ahead anyway."

"Yes, sir. I would not say we performed well. We certainly couldn't defend the city."

Leo nodded. "True. But I have seen the army reports from the battle. Nearly all of your units saw use, but your casualty rates and damage estimates afterwards were better than any other magitek unit by a substantial margin. I would give a great deal to have had eighty guardian suits instead of eight. We would have fared much better, I think."

"Yes, sir."

"As for your damaged suit. Major Deldrasi was killed before he could reach his own. It spent the battle in storage and is in good repair. I am reassigning it to you."

"Yes, sir." I paused. "Sir, I am…uncomfortable at the thought of working with the enemy."

Leo regarded me silently for a moment. I fidgeted. I would not have said that to anyone else, but I knew he would disapprove.

"I understand your concerns," he said at last, "but your orders stand. You will accompany us. I won't ask you to interact with the Returners squad more than necessary, but you will have to be polite when it is. I hope the extra firepower will not be needed. But if it is, I need you there."

"Yes, sir."

o o o

"The Emperor summons you."

I stood at the door of my quarters, stunned into silence. The royal messenger who had spoken eyed me expectantly.

 _First Leo, now Gestahl_ , I thought. _I get more nervous the higher I rise_.

I followed him, of course. What else could I do? The emperor's audience chamber is high in the Imperial Citadel; the throne has its back to the windows in such a manner that, in looking at the emperor, you can see much of the the capital below. I've been there before, usually for military addresses. It's an amazing sight.

I was not being led to his audience chamber.

We broke off from the main staircase several levels below, on a floor that, so far as I knew, served as a maintenance level. In rooms off to the side of the hallway I could see spare parts, machinery, cooking supplies. Some of it I recognized; pipes for running water, for instance. Much of it I didn't. At least one room held empty magitek suits.

I'm not stupid. Obviously the Emperor had a regular need for more private meetings. But he had his own offices for that, and presumably they were secure. That I was to meet him in such an out of the way place rang of true paranoia. I grew steadily more lost as we continued — would I be able to find my way back? I wasn't sure.

Eventually we turned off, at a room that looked to contain old chemical jars and damaged furniture. There was a hidden door behind a broken grandfather clock. The passage it revealed was tight enough that I could not have gotten through with armor on. Weapons of any size would have been difficult too.

"I am to stay here," my guide said. "You go through."

A few steps and another door brought me to my destination. The room was fairly large, and unfurnished. A detailed map of the empire was on one wall, and a map of the entire world on the other. On the side opposite me was another door, this one nondescript. Perhaps it led to Gestahl's own chambers. It was flanked by two men, armed and armored, with insignia marking them as the Emperor's personal guard.

To the left was a man I recognized, a major named Soverin. I knew him, because I had trained with him on the Guardian suits. He stood facing away from me, at attention, silent.

And before us was the Emperor himself. He was dressed plainly, but his face was unmistakable. He wore the same steady, severe expression that I recognized from his public appearances; that of a man who ruled half the world, was absolutely comfortable with that responsibility, and would brook no interference.

I stepped up beside Soverin, put one hand to my chest, and knelt. "My Lord. I have come as ordered."

"Rise," he said, tonelessly. "And wait. One of you has yet to arrive."

Within ten minutes another man had joined us. Another major, another Guardian pilot. There was no ceremony here. The emperor's voice was clipped and businesslike, and he made us aware without saying so that he expected us to remember all that he said and obey without question.

"You three have each been approached by General Leo and ordered to serve under him for the mission to Crescent Island. I believe you all know each other. That may make this easier. You have been ordered to cooperate with the Returners as required, conduct a search for the Espers, and stand by in case military intervention is necessary. Those are your orders as given to General Leo, and through him to you. However, I have additional orders, which you are not to share with anyone, including Leo, for reasons which will become apparent shortly.

"Despite our negotiations with the Returners, I have no intention of making peace with either them or the Espers. In addition to Leo's party, Kefka will be leading a small, separate contingent to Crescent Island. He has by now sufficient power to directly quell the Espers.

"Your official mission, if it is successful, is likely to result in at least one meeting with Imperial forces, the Returners, and the Espers all present. At that time Kefka will ambush them. Other than him, you three represent the most significant military force that will be present. You are therefore to support him in whatever manner he requires during the attack. Until that time you are to remain silent and behave as if our public policy is our actual policy. Do you have any questions or concerns so far?"

The man to my right — I knew his face but not his name — saluted briefly. His face was clouded, but his voice was clear. "Yes sir, I do. If General Leo is not aware of these orders, it is likely we or others present will receive contrary orders from him. It may well end with our men fighting each other."

Gestahl nodded. "You, at least, have received orders directly from me, and can corroborate them for your subordinates if it comes to that. You are the highest-ranking soldiers there other than Leo himself." He stopped, and grimaced harshly. It was the first expression of genuine emotion I had seen, public or private.

"Kefka is a damn fool," he said. I was not sure if he was speaking to us or to himself; but he radiated a cold sort of anger. "If not for his stupidity at Doma, I could have used him openly here and there would be no need for this distasteful skulduggery. But the Returners will never cooperate with him now. And while Leo is a superb and loyal soldier, conspiracy does not come naturally to him. He would obey, but he could not hide the deception. Therefore we must deceive him as well, for the time being. If necessary, you must detain Leo yourselves. Without harming him, though I do not think I need to tell you that. I have lost enough good officers in recent days."

All three of us murmured in agreement. Gestahl continued as if he had not spoken his outburst.

"Do you have any other questions?"

I looked at my two companions. I saw them look back. I think we were all hoping someone else would say something. Somebody _needed_ to speak, but my mouth was dry.

Somehow I got it to open anyway. "My lord," I said.

"Yes, major?"

"I…I do not think Kefka can be trusted to act in the best interests of the Empire." I held my breath, expecting punishment.

Gestahl frowned, opened his mouth to speak, then frowned again. He looked to my left and right. "I see from your companions' expressions that they agree. Yes?"

They each nodded, slowly. I could feel some of the tension drain out of them. No one raises an objection to the Emperor lightly.

"Your concerns are not unwarranted. I would have liked to have kept him out of this. But Terra no longer belongs to us, and despite Celes's reinstatement, I can no longer entirely trust her. Kefka is the only one I can send and be confident that he both has the power to defeat an Esper, and will in fact do so. At least in part _because_ he is not sane. I must make do with the resources I have."

Emboldened slightly that I had been answered and not punished, I continued to question. "I worry that he will turn and use that power against us."

I think the Emperor was angry at my impertinence. His eyes were steely, and I was afraid I had stepped too far. But he had not judged our thoughts wrongly; all here had the same concerns. I don't think Gestahl ever realized how deep distrust of Kefka had spread throughout the Imperial Forces. It had begun long before Doma and now sat within us like a dormant infection.

The tone of his voice, when he spoke, made me shiver with its intensity. "He very well may. But if he does, it will be _answered_. Attend me, you three. I see you require convincing. I will show you something, but it is not to leave this room. Is that understood?"

We stood and saluted in response. Gestahl held forth a hand, empty, palm up.

A curling flame sprang into being above it. I gasped. _The emperor, too?_

He paused long enough for us to take in the effect. "The process is…incomplete. But I have been working with the scientists who created Kefka and Celes, with all the knowledge that is now available to us. And that is quite a bit; it will not be long before Magitek power is effectively obsolete. When it is done, Kefka will be neither necessary, nor a threat. But that is then. Right now, the Empire faces enemies both without and within. The Returners occupy our capital. Our army has been crippled by the Espers, and I have been disappointed by two of my most capable officers. But we can recover and we can rebuild, _if_ the Espers are neutralized, and _if_ we are prepared to handle Kefka before he goes completely insane. With the Returner leadership here, we have an opportunity to remove our human opposition as well.

"We are balancing a sword by its tip on our fingers, and the entire weight of the Empire is its pommel. We must use care, but it can be done."

 _The Emperor has a plan_ , I thought, feeling relieved. _To overcome great crises we take great risks. The Emperor has a plan. And I am part of it_. I and my fellow officers saluted again. To my surprise, Gestahl saluted back.

"Good luck, gentlemen," he said.

I felt much better as I left.

I shouldn't have.

o o o

My sense of relief did not last. I had expected to dislike cooperating with the enemy, and I had been right. I had not expected to dislike preparing to stab them in the back, and I had to stew over that for several days before we even left for Crescent Island. Alone. Yes, my two fellow majors were there. Conspirators. But there was no need to talk about our orders. The best way to keep them secret from spies was to never mention them. If the walls had ears, we gave them nothing to listen to.

I said my goodbyes to Laurel before leaving Vector. She was tense, but accepting. I've heard some soldiers' wives go to pieces when they get deployed, but Laurel has never been like that. Normally she'll just give me an extra pack of food and try to ensure I don't forget anything important. She seemed more nervous this time than usual, but I think it may really have been me.

Leo had been right about one thing, at least; I did not have to talk much to the Returners. Which was just as well, because one of them was Terra, the fire witch. I was trying not to think of her that way, lest I say it out loud at an inopportune moment.

Leo led the mission. General Chere joined us in Albrook. Kefka was out there…somewhere. All three of the Empire's army generals, heading to the same place. Leo was there to make peace with the Espers; Kefka was there to make war. Who knows what Celes Chere was there for. She had defected, then returned. If the Emperor didn't trust her, what the hell was she doing on this mission? Maybe it was _because_ she had worked with the Returners before. A bridge between enemies.

But was that bridge a useful one? I had little reason to talk and plenty to watch, so I watched. The Returners didn't seem to have our kind of rigid command structure, but their contingent still had two clear leaders. The fire witch ( _Terra_ , I mentally corrected) was one. She seemed to defer to another whose name was Locke. That seemed odd to me, because she was clearly more powerful. Locke, for his part, was personable, likable, and a habitual thief. He protested the latter strenuously any time it was mentioned. It was most frequently mentioned by his companions.

I still have no idea why they trusted him.

This is how it looked when I watched general Chere interact with them: The rank and file looked on her approvingly, perhaps because they felt she had left the Empire for good reasons and then returned for good reasons. But she rarely spoke to them on unofficial business. She had made a career in the Imperial Forces, and here, generals don't fraternize with privates.

Between her and the two leaders, there was tension and little else. I could not figure out why, but if the idea of having her along was to facilitate cooperation, I doubt it worked. I sympathized with her in a way that I couldn't really express; on this mission, surrounded by erstwhile allies, she was well and truly alone. Just like me.

Alone, I brooded about my orders, and waited. The voyage took weeks. I spent most of the journey polishing equipment. I called it "repairing", but most of it was in perfect condition to begin with. Leo insisted both parties eat together. I kept my mouth shut.

Terra (see? I got it right that time) got in the habit of helping the ship's cook. I overheard him ask her if she enjoyed cooking. It seemed a strange thing for a former elite soldier.

"I don't remember," she said. "But I want to find out."

The food was not particularly good that night. I didn't ask why. But I found out later that she had lost much of her memory while trapped in her slave crown. I guess she really didn't know if she could cook or not. Something about that disturbed me.

Shortly before we arrived, Leo called a meeting. Himself, Celes, myself and my two conspirators, the two Returner leaders, and their seconds. There was another man I didn't know, dressed in black.

"Welcome, everyone," Leo said. "I'll keep this brief. This is Shadow. For those that haven't met him, I wanted a local guide and he knows the area around the island. I expect we'll make landfall within the next day or two, so now is a good time to discuss it. If you could give a brief description, please."

Shadow's voice was toneless, and he clearly didn't care for the formalities. He carried a geographic sketch of the island and referred to it as he spoke. "The north end is all mountains. The south is forested. There's a village on the eastern peninsula and the farms around it stretch back about this far. Or at least they did last time I was there."

"Perhaps we should just land at the village and ask if they've seen any flying monsters," Locke suggested, grinning.

"Only if you feel like ripping the bottom out of the ship. That side of the island is surrounded by reefs. The north coast is cliffs. You'll have to land on the south end. Since that's where we're approaching from I doubt you'll have any objections. You'll just have to walk once you get there. As for your Espers, I don't know. There's plenty of places to hide in the mountains so they may be up there."

"Terra, is there anything you can tell us?" Leo asked. "Can you feel them at all?"

"Only that we're getting closer. Their minds are more distinct. I can't get a direction though."

"All right. South it is. Shadow, when we get sight of land, please work with the captain to get us in safely."

"Very well," he said.

"When we hit land, I'd like to split up. With all due respect to our counterparts among the Returners," — here he nodded towards Locke and Terra — "it's more difficult than I'd like to get everyone working together on a daily basis, and I think it will work better to keep the Returner and Imperial teams separate."

"Problem," Locke objected. "Suppose one team discovers them first without informing the other? Not that I think we can't trust you, but yeah, we can't trust you. No offense."

Leo gave a wry smile. "None taken. But even if you can't trust me, can you trust Celes here? You have, after all, worked with her before."

Locke opened his mouth silently a couple times, and looked at general Chere without meeting her eyes. Then he glanced at his companion. "Terra? What do you think? He makes a good point."

"He does," she said. "Celes, will you promise not to approach them until we're with you?" Terra, unlike Locke, had no trouble meeting her eyes.

"I will."

"Good enough for me." She nodded to Leo. "I was inclined to agree anyway. This has been hard on all of us from the beginning."

"Done, then. They're probably hiding in the northern mountains, as Shadow suggested, but locating them might be difficult. Inquiring at the village may help."

"We'll take the village, at least to start," Locke said. "I doubt a party of soldiers would loosen many tongues."

"Agreed. You should take Shadow with you. If you run into anyone that knows him, it may be useful."

Shadow twitched — I saw that clearly — but he didn't object. As for the Returners, they agreed immediately. And that felt wrong. This Shadow was on our payroll; they had to know he would be asked to spy on them and report to us. What was going on there? I didn't know, and as the meeting broke up, I decided I didn't much care. The plan meant that I wouldn't have to hold my tongue or watch my back for a while, and that was more than enough for me.

It also meant I wouldn't have to think too hard about betrayals for a while. Or Kefka.

Or Gestahl.

o o o

That little village was named Thamasa, and it was there that things went all to hell a week later. Terra found her Espers, all right. And Kefka found us. Soverin, myself, and our co-conspirator; by now I knew his name was Rosker. Kefka never addressed us by name or rank. In a way he never even spoke to us; he spoke _through_ us. His words rambled, and it would have been easy to dismiss him as entirely crazy if he had not turned out to be entirely correct.

"Hide your silly machines at the north end of town," he said. " _That_ building, there, the one that's all burned out. Leo's going to meet them out in the open in the town square. Of course he will. He'll let himself be vulnerable to put _them_ at ease. Stupid diplomat. Stupid general. He'll tell you to stay out of it, too. Just himself. Maybe a few small time grunts. Celes? Maybe her, too. Yes, definitely her."

"Sir, should we—"

"Shaddap, I'm thinking. Less talk. No talk. Not from you." Kefka giggled. Goddamn madman. "No talk from you. From them, nothing but talk. All talk. Well, let them talk. Won't last long. I'll hit them when it all seems done and settled. As demoralizing as possible." His eyes narrowed as he said that last bit. For a moment he seemed to be lapsing into sanity. "You three, back me up. Leo and his cohort won't be ready. Go for them first. Gestahl says not to kill them. So Gestahl says." He snorted, as if he didn't think much of what the Emperor said. "Well, whatever. Don't kill them. Just get them down and out of it. Leo's stupid but he's dangerous. Celes, too. Kill those Returners if you want. They don't matter. But the _Espers_ , they're mine. Don't touch them."

"Yes, sir," Major Soverin said weakly. His eyes were pale. I didn't blame him. The Emperor himself had ordered us to obey Kefka. Kefka had just ordered us to fire on a general.

 _I'm going to get through this,_ I thought. _I don't like it, and damn I wish I could shoot this crazy bastard in the back, but I'm a soldier, I follow orders, and I love the Empire more than I hate him._

 _For the Empire, for the Empire,_ I repeated in my head like a mantra. It felt disturbingly hollow.

Late that night, we concealed our Guardians under some discarded crate-wood, behind the building Kefka had indicated. That was harder than it sounds. They're taller than a man and wider than a bull. It took a few hours to do it right, and Kefka watched us, perched like a bat on its roof. If anyone saw him, the whole operation would have been moot. One person did. Kefka did…something…with magic, and they went away. When we were done he did something else to make the whole pile vanish. Including us.

Why he didn't just do that in the first place I have no idea. But looking down at myself and seeing _nothing_ was one of the most disturbing experiences in my life.

We slept in our mechs. Kefka kept to his perch. I don't think he slept either, he just liked being up there, looking down at us. We couldn't see ourselves or each other, but I'm pretty sure he saw us just fine. In the morning he woke us by conjuring the sound of a rattlesnake in our ears. Just for fun. It was all funny to him, yet he sounded calmer than usual.

"An hour until they show up," he said. "Get your things ready. As quiet as you can manage."

"Yes, sir," we all muttered. I climbed back out of my suit to check its condition. A night in the relative open didn't seem to do it any harm. I wanted to talk to the other two, but Kefka kept a close watch on us. I'm sure he sensed our dissatisfaction. He was crazy, but not a fool. He probably didn't want us to start planning a triple cross to match his double cross. Not an unwarranted concern. By now I was praying for one of us to stab him in the back. Just, well, not me. I'd probably die trying, right? And I had a wife back home.

I wonder if the other two thought the same at the time. Three people, all with the same desire, all waiting for someone _else_ to do it. Well, I never had a chance to ask them later. But I know I've regretted my cowardice ever since.

Most of what had to be done, had been done the night before. The burned-out building appeared to have been abandoned, so we entered and hid by the front windows to watch for our moment. If anyone saw us, they would probably assume we were curious locals.

I had no clock, but it really did seem to be about an hour. Perhaps Kefka had gone out scouting the night before. It seems the Returner party had been the one to first locate the Espers. When they arrived, they were led by a…creature…who had the shape of a man, but was definitely _not_ a man. I don't know what he was. I was too far away to see fine details, but his body was furred in brown and dark green. The others with him were as different as could be. I saw a tiny woman with butterfly wings, a giant armadillo with a spined shell, a thing with a wolf's face and a bull's horns. And talking, all of them talking. I could hear the voices but not make out the words. I thought: _I am afraid of them_ , and it was true. Mentally I recoiled from their appearance like I would from a monster. It did not help that I knew these creatures had left most of my home city as a heap of wreckage.

The Imperial delegation seemed just as tense as I was. They were in uniform and wore helmets, of course, but I could see it in the way they stood, the way they were overly rigid in their at-attention posture. The Returners were the same, except the few who approached as part of the Esper party. Presumably they had been in one another's company long enough to be comfortable with each other. A few of the locals were there, too. I couldn't get any kind of read on them.

General Leo stood as they approached, and in contrast to his men he seemed completely at ease. He exchanged a few words with the Returner leaders, then approached the foremost Esper with a formal demeanor and shook hands. That, more than anything else, is the image that has stuck in my mind in the years since. It is mentally labeled " _this is what could have been_."

Kefka, behind us, cackled. Quietly. I don't know how he managed that.

"I wonder how long this will take," Soverin muttered.

"Not long, not long," Kefka said, in a disturbing singsong voice. "Not long at all. Oh, Leo wants peace. Oh, that Esper wants peace. Two people that want the same thing will never have trouble agreeing."

I couldn't hear what was being said, but I could see the tension bleed out of the three delegations as Leo and the nameless Esper spoke. In clock time, it was brief. In my time, it was forever.

As the discussion between the two wound down, one of the locals spoke up. A woman, extremely short. I would have thought her a child, except you don't invite children to formal negotiations. I couldn't hear what she said, but it must have been a joke. Laughter spread. Returners, Imperials, and Espers. We could hear it from our hiding-spot.

"That's our cue," Kefka said. We turned around. He was grinning wildly, but his eyes were cold as death. "Mount up. Now. Time for a little magitek mayhem."

We did, and our Guardians followed after him, magitek machinery in its mimicry of life. I was suddenly reminded of the memo I'd read in Records, a month before. _"The Emperor would rather put power in the hands of trusted officers than machines, as the latter can be stolen and put to use against us."_ So reasonable, so true. But Kefka was his trusted officer. And I had one of those oh-so-suspect machines.

As we arrived at the square, I was behind Kefka, ahead of the others, and had a sudden overwhelming urge. I made an "accidental" control mistake, and bumped into Kefka fairly hard. A human man weighs maybe two hundred pounds. My Guardian weighed nearly three thousand. He fell down. In keeping with the "accident," I walked on a bit before deigning to notice. In truth, I hoped someone behind me would take advantage of the moment. Neither of them did.

"Sorry, sir," I said as he got up. It had been satisfying, but not useful, and I remembered that he was a crazy bastard and may well try to kill me over an accident.

I don't think he even noticed. He was laughing as he got up. "You," he pointed at Rosker, "start shooting. If it's not an Esper I want it on the ground. Start with general Celes."

"Yes, sir."

They had noticed us by now, and we were close, but they didn't seem to have decided what to do yet. Rosker brought his mech to bear, aiming at the Imperial troop. _God damn it,_ I thought, _I warned the Emperor this might happen._ And it did. He fired. Crackling lightning shot out in a twisting coil. He had it set in a wide cone, its power spread out. It was meant to shock and disable, not kill, but it was an inexact thing. Magitek suits are really not meant as police tools.

Half the Imperials went down, twitching. Celes dove to one side, but a second shot struck her and nearly got Leo as well. The third shot was aimed at the Returner party. They didn't fare any better. I saw Terra ( _the fire witch_ , I mentally corrected) go down, and felt warped, bitter satisfaction that was not as pleasant as it should have been.

I steeled myself mentally. Battle, like it or not, was joined. Well, I knew battle well enough, although it looked as if this wouldn't be much of one.

Leo was already heading our way. "Kefka!" he shouted, "Why are you here? What the hell are you doing?"

"Emperor's orders!" Kefka shouted back. "I'm to bring the magicite remains of these Espers to his Excellency. Such a mother lode, too!" He raised his hands. They glowed with white fire.

Something as bright as the sun, too bright to look at, burst forth from his hands and struck the Espers' leader, the furred creature who had been talking to Leo. It hit him in the chest, then spread over his body until he could no longer be seen. The glowing thing shrank, to the size of a wagon wheel, then a children's ball, then nothing. As it faded, it left behind a small crystal. I guess that's what Kefka called Magicite.

It leapt from the ground, flew a hundred feet, and landed in Kefka's hands. Leo, stunned into silence, gaped at him.

Two more spells, two more dead Espers. The others panicked and scattered.

"I hate this stupid little hamlet," Kefka said in a quieter voice, addressing me and Soverin. "You know what? Burn it." We both hesitated. "Burn it, I said! BURN IT BURN IT BURN IT."

Mechanically, no longer really aware of what I was doing, I followed orders. I dialed my beam control over to "Flame", turned to face the nearest building, and lit it on fire. The part of me that felt like me was just sort of drifting in the background. The part of me acting was just a soldier, not really myself at all, or so I'd like to think.

It was just easier to do exactly as I'd been told.

I guess Major Soverin felt the same. Kefka told him to bring down Leo, and he fired a magitek missile at Leo's feet. The concussion knocked the general flying. He hit the ground and rolled down a hill where I couldn't see him.

Once the building I was working on was well and truly lit up, I started on the next one. And the next. Like washing dishes. Like driving nails.

o o o

General Leo must have regained consciousness at some point, because twenty minutes later I turned and saw him coming back up the hill. He was covered in soot and dirt, and I could see some blood on him, but he didn't seem too badly wounded. He roared something at Kefka that I couldn't hear, and charged.

A gigantic column of fire leapt up from the ground under him, twenty feet in every direction, hot enough that I could feel it a hundred yards away. Through the flames I could see Leo keep going. He came out at a dead run, his hair on fire and his skin blackened, drawing his sword. Kefka looked surprised.

Without hesitation, Leo ran him through. What we should have done. What we lacked the courage to do. I felt something like life in my mind again.

But Kefka didn't bleed.

Instead his body disintegrated, gradually falling into dust that itself faded into nothing. I gawked. Somehow, through the noise and the screaming (for the civilians were running for the hills by then, possessions be damned, and I'm glad Kefka never ordered us to kill them or I'd probably have even more blood on my cowardly hands) I heard Kefka's voice. Not well enough to work out the words. But his tone was taunting. Leo responded with a defiant shout.

Suddenly — behind Leo, where he couldn't see it but I could — Emperor Gestahl appeared.

Not him, of course. An illusion. I knew it. Leo didn't. He just turned around and saw his Emperor, and, I suppose, assumed he had been part of the attack, but hidden. One plan hidden behind a different plan. It wasn't unthinkable. Gestahl was well-known, at least in the military, for keeping his true aims hidden whenever possible, and wasn't I just the perfect proof of that?

Leo knelt.

 _Don't_ , I thought. _That's not him._

I couldn't hear what "Gestahl" said, but Leo, burned and bleeding, eventually stood up. He was standing differently, as if bearing a great weight. Mesmerized, I watched. On the far side of the scene, I could see the other two pilots watching as well.

Stepping through his own illusion, Kefka appeared. He didn't bother with magic; he used a sword.

The blow started high and came down, aimed to cut from the neck towards the chest. Even taken by surprise and badly injured, Leo still managed to get partly out of the way. It caught his hip instead, and he went down. Kefka, laughing, stood over him. I don't know what he was saying but it had to have been mockery. I was paralyzed. This wasn't supposed to be how today went. We were supposed to launch our ambush, Leo would be detained, the Returners and Espers would be killed, and then we would rejoin the main Imperial contingent, leave the town behind, and go home. And if I had regrets, well, what soldier doesn't?

I had been looking for an Imperial victory, not a Kefka victory. This was a Kefka victory. Nothing won, just things destroyed.

Kefka's blade came down again, and I did not need to see clearly to know the strike was lethal.

Something in me woke up then. I turned my Guardian towards Kefka and set my weapons to whatever would make the biggest bang. On the other side of him, I could see Soverin doing the same. I wonder if he was thinking the same thing I was: _Why the hell didn't we do this before now?_ Rosker's mech was off to one side. He didn't seem to be doing much of anything. I wonder if his mind had cracked. That sometimes happens.

Kefka was shouting at the sky, amplifying his voice with magic. He was addressing the Espers. "I feel you out there! Feels like you're all charged up! Remind me to show you my magicite collection someday! You might see a few familiar faces!" He raised his arms; his hands were glowing again, even brighter than before. My fingers worked the controls. I thought I was ready to fire.

Whatever power came forth from those hands began on the side away from me, towards Soverin. The air warped with its passing. I don't think it was aimed at him. It was probably aimed at the Espers that I couldn't see yet. (Could I? That thing up in the sky looked like it might have been one) But as it passed by Soverin's suit, I could see it shut down, stop moving. One moment he was lining up a shot at Kefka; the next, his Guardian was as still as stone. I could see him trying to fire, fruitlessly.

Seconds later, it imploded, as if a giant magnet had been set at its center. The metal must have crushed Soverin's legs and most of his torso. What was left of the machine collapsed. What was left of him rolled off of the pile in pieces.

Kefka was waving his arm off to the right. Rosker's Guardian got the same treatment. I doubt Kefka noticed. I was sure I was going to die and started to go for my trigger, hoping at least to kill him in return.

At the last moment, my courage failed. The wave passed over me, and I popped the upper hatch and scrambled out of my seat as the Guardian went silent beneath me. I climbed over the back of the suit and prepared to jump down, but lost my balance as it, too, imploded. I fell ten feet to the cobblestones and hit my head. My helmet probably saved my life, but I still blacked out.


	3. Mortal God

I'm not sure how long I was out. I don't think it was long, minutes perhaps. Kefka was gone. A few people in the town square, down where the meeting had been, were getting to their feet and helping the fallen. I didn't dare approach them. I crawled behind the twisted wreckage of my Guardian and hid there for a moment, catching my breath and checking my wounds. They didn't seem bad, at least at first, but when I got to my feet I nearly fell over with sudden dizziness.

It took me three attempts to stand properly, and I couldn't walk straight. I lurched away from the square, trying to keep behind cover. It was easy enough. Several buildings had burned themselves out by now, and the wreckage served. After a mile or so the dizziness became too strong and I had to stop. I sat down on the cobblestones and tried to think.

First: I wasn't personally in that much danger. With my helmet on no one could tell me apart from any other Imperial soldier. I wouldn't be recognized as one of Kefka's accomplices.

Second: Exception to first, any Imperial present would know me on sight, and my (now destroyed) suit was distinctive enough that I would never be able to claim I wasn't party to the crime. We had fired on our own men and that was that.

Third: The only way I had off the island was the ship that had brought us here.

Conclusion: If I was going to make it home alive and without arrest, I had to beat the delegation back to the ship and convince them to launch immediately.

Which I couldn't possibly do. I was alone, the Magitek suit I had ridden in on was gone, and I had no alternative mount, which meant I had to walk. It was at least fifty miles to the ship. Days, in the wilderness, alone, on foot. It was not going to happen. So getting home meant surrendering and hoping for the best.

Well, fine. I struggled back to my feet and retraced my steps. It took twice as long to return; the dizzy feeling was getting more and more pronounced. Just walking was difficult. I probably had a concussion. Maybe worse. I mentally shied away from the idea that the injury might be permanent.

By the time I got back to the town square it was past noon. Celes and a few of the locals were trying to put out the fires with magic. They had been at least partially successful. The dead had been laid out, off to one side. There were fewer corpses than I had expected. But then, I hadn't been trying to kill anyone, really. Rosker wasn't shooting to kill when he attacked. Soverin never even fired a shot. Only Kefka had real lethal intent, and he didn't care about anyone except the Espers.

And he had killed Leo. Not because he had to, I think. Just because he _felt_ like it.

 _Even the fire witch never did anything like that_ , was the crazy thought in my head. It made no sense. She killed fifty, Kefka killed three. Leo wouldn't have weighed his own death any more than anyone else's. But I wasn't Leo, and it seemed worse to me. And I doubted the fire witch had acted on a whim.

I staggered towards the Imperial group, exaggerating somewhat for effect. I drew glances from the Returners but nothing more. One of the privates came out to meet me, and I approached him with something resembling dread. I tried to remind myself that I hadn't _personally_ assaulted any of my comrades. The private saw my insignia, started to salute, then stopped.

"Oh. You."

"Yeah," I replied. "Who's the ranking officer left? Other than me, I mean."

"Lieutenant Iolen," he said. He did not add "sir."

"Lead me to him, please."

"As you wish."

He didn't offer me a shoulder to lean on, and I had to stumble behind him. I fell once. He didn't help me up either.

The lieutenant was taking a report from one of the sergeants when we arrived. He was facing away, and only noticed us when the man's voice trailed off.

Iolen frowned, noted the sergeant was looking over his shoulder, and turned. His eyebrows raised.

"Well, this is a surprise," he said. "The other two are dead. And if you don't have a really good explanation, really fast, I'm going to have you executed for treason and not a man here will oppose it. General Leo is gone. So are three other good people. Last I checked we were here to talk, not fight. And not to kill our own."

"Can we step aside to talk about this?" I asked.

He frowned. "Fine. But we're staying in sight. Sergeant, dismissed for now." The sergeant saluted, and Iolen and I walked off about a hundred paces. "That's far enough. Talk."

"I had higher orders," I said quietly.

"Like hell. I was _there_ when Leo gave the order, and he's a _general_. Unless you took Kefka's orders over his, in which case you're a fool _and_ a traitor. He doesn't have rank anymore and everyone knows it, and even if he did you'd still be a fool."

"I had _higher orders_ ," I repeated, with a bit more emphasis and a meaningful look.

This time Iolen got it. "There's only one man who outranks Leo, and that's the Emperor. You're telling me _he_ wanted Leo dead?"

"No, he wanted Leo _alive_ ," I said, angry myself. "Look, we were supposed to take down the Returners and the Espers all at once. Kefka was the hidden ace. Leo was never told because you can't accidentally give away something you don't know. So we were told to take Kefka's orders once we got here. But then Kefka went totally off the handle and, well, this." I gestured vaguely. "I told him this would happen. I _told_ him."

"Told who? Kefka?" Iolen sneered. "You're an idiot if you think he would care."

"Not him. Emperor Gestahl."

"Oh."

We were both silent for a while.

"All right," Iolen said at last. "Whatever. You know I can't take your word on that because anyone who could confirm it is dead or off to who knows where, right?"

"Yeah."

"But if I killed you and you're telling the truth, I'll probably catch hell for it later."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Whatever. Follow me back."

I did. He found another sergeant (not the same man) and grabbed two other soldiers.

"Major," he said. "I'm placing you under arrest on suspicion of treason. These three will relieve you of your equipment."

I sighed, at last feeling like I might live through this. I didn't have much. I handed over my dagger and helmet without complaint, and stripped off my body armor. When I was done, I felt naked. But I was alive, and it seemed I would make it home after all.

"One more thing," he said, when I was done.

"Yes, sir."

Without warning, he drove a fist into my face. It knocked me clean over backwards, and I hit my head on the cobblestones again. I groaned and covered my face with a hand, expecting another blow. I felt blood.

"He's to be guarded until we board the ship back to Albrook," Iolen said to the sergeant. He sounded satisfied. "See to it."

o o o

There was a brief military funeral for Leo before we left town. I was not permitted to attend, for obvious reasons. The Returners held their own funeral afterwards, which seemed an odd thing to me. I suppose Leo had friends even among his enemies. He was that kind of man.

The Returners did not travel back with us. An airship, of all things, picked them up. _That_ was an impressive sight. I'd heard such things existed, of course, but apparently our adversaries had very wealthy friends.

It was just as well. Without Leo to keep us in check, a fight may well have broken out, and that was the last thing any of us needed. I was the closest target for revenge, but Iolen had his head on straight. He made it clear I was heading for a tribunal and that freelance justice would not be tolerated. If not for that I might have gone over the side the first night.

Despite the atmosphere, the voyage back to Albrook was surprisingly uneventful. At first I felt relieved. The weight of conspiracy was off my shoulders. The disaster I feared had already happened. I was under arrest, of course, but Iolen never bothered to have me put in chains. There was certainly no chance of escape from a ship at sea.

The winds were with us. The journey was shorter. I would be exonerated, once I got home. I could see Laurel again.

Nevertheless I had a feeling of gathering dread, even as we disembarked at Albrook. Something was wrong. On the surface, my thoughts were " _what if the emperor isn't here, to exonerate me?_ Well, I would probably hang. Laurel would end a widow, and a disgraced one at that. The thought set my stomach roiling.

But that wasn't what was really bothering me. There was something else. Something worse. Kefka had been far more powerful than I had ever been led to believe. Gestahl had said that, once his own powers were complete, it wouldn't matter.

What if he was wrong?

"You look like you're going to an execution," Iolen said to me on the dock side as the last of his soldiers stepped onto the pier.

"I _feel_ like I'm going to an execution," I said.

"Maybe you are. I suppose that will be for your tribunal to decide." He picked out three soldiers and had them surround and escort me. "We're going to head straight to the Citadel to report. I don't want to be responsible for you any longer than I have to, so let's be quick about it. And let's not make a spectacle for the civilians, either."

Vector is not very far from Albrook, and four days later we marched in, weary but not too badly so. The city seemed to have recovered somewhat since the Esper attack. The bodies had long been cleared from the streets. Buildings that had not been too badly damaged were patched up, windows boarded or replaced. Many that were beyond repair had been leveled to prepare for reconstruction. There was no longer a sense of omnipresent fear, as there had been in the days after the battle. Above the city, unchanging, the Imperial Citadel stood.

"We're almost home," Iolen said to his troop, as we joined the main road. It drew a wan cheer. "Look like proper soldiers, all of you." We formed into two columns. I was still near the front, and I had no doubt that the man behind me had a dagger sharpened just for me. Iolen was a good soldier; he never gave me enough room to escape, even had I intended to. I marched with the rest.

We were halfway to the Citadel when the ground began to shake. At first just enough to make me stumble.

"Earthquake?" someone said, perplexed.

"In Vector?" someone else responded. "I've lived here all my life. We don't get earthquakes."

The second groundshock was stronger. I lost my footing and went down hard; two others did the same. Confusion spread. We were on a market street, and I could see merchants leaving their shops to see what was going on. Or perhaps just to get outside.

"What on earth…?"

There was silence for about a minute.

The third groundshock left no one standing. It was like some titanic underground god was swimming through the bedrock. The noise left my ears ringing. I couldn't even attempt to regain my feet. All I could think about was trying, very very hard, not to let the ground reach up and punch me in the head.

It went on, and on, and on. People were screaming everywhere. Just up the street, a passerby on a chocobo was thrown and lay motionless, unconscious or dead, tossed about the by earth's gyrations like a child's doll. The chocobo itself ran on in a panic. Its gait was lurching and drunken, and it made it about twenty feet before crashing headlong into a wall. I'm sure it broke its own neck. Moments later, the building it had run into gave up and collapsed, one of the walls falling down on the corpse.

I looked at that shattered building and thought: _Laurel_.

I started crawling for the nearest alleyway. I had to get out of sight, get away from my captors, get home. Did anyone even notice? I doubt it. I heard shouts, of course, but that told me nothing. No one shouted my name. I'm sure they had other things to worry about, like getting murdered by roadworks.

I made it around the corner and crawled down the alley, then up to the next street. I found that I could move a considerable distance in the precious few moments when the ground was still, as long as I didn't worry too much about how badly I would get hurt when it moved again. And I did get hurt. I'm not sure how many bruises I had after the first thousand feet. Probably too many.

That thousand feet took an eternity. The next thousand went faster. The earthquake had settled into longer periods of silence followed by sudden, wrenching motion. It was still too dangerous to walk, and I kept to the middle of the street as best I could. By the time I had gone a mile, nearly an hour had passed. The tremors were less frequent and less violent. I could walk again, probably. I couldn't run.

I ran anyway, with one eye over my shoulder for pursuit. None came. They probably hadn't even seen me go. If they asked witnesses, it probably went something like "Have you seen a man matching this description?"

"No, sir, my face was in the dirt."

It took an hour to reach my home. It was small, nondescript, a bit tight for two people. The only thing marking it out was a rather nice flower bed we used to keep just outside the front door. Emphasis on "used to." When I arrived, it was a ruin. The rear half of the roof had collapsed and our flower garden was now decorated with window glass.

"Laurel!" I shouted as I approached. "Where are you?"

No response. My heart, already beating far too quickly after running for so long, felt like it was going to explode out of my chest. My mind started making up reasons she wasn't answering. Maybe she had gone out for food. Maybe she was visiting a friend. Maybe she _wasn't there_.

But maybe she was under what was left of our roof.

I climbed the front stoop and tried the door. It was locked. I scrabbled in my pocket for the key, couldn't find it, raised one foot and slammed my boot against the latch. It burst open. Somewhere drifting in my head was the thought that if I could break in that easily, I should probably do something about the door's security.

"Laurel!" I shouted again, as I entered. The entryway was untouched aside from the remains of broken windows. The kitchen dishes were casualties, but the kitchen was otherwise undamaged. I didn't see her. The main hallway was blocked by a collapsed chunk of the roof. I climbed over it and made my way towards the back, still shouting.

At last, I got a response, a barely audible "I hear you, I'm here!" and I recognized her voice. The vice around my heart eased up somewhat. It was coming from the sitting room.

"I'm under here," she said as I entered, her voice thin, but relieved. "Help me."

She must have been sitting in the corner when the earthquake started. A piece of the broken roof had caved in over there, and I could see her feet and one of her arms sticking out of the wreckage. The rest of her was buried. No wonder I couldn't hear her from outside.

I started hauling pieces of debris off. Her face came into view first, and under any other circumstances I would have been horrified. Blood ran from her scalp and down her face, more of it than could be healthy. But her eyes were open and clear.

"Can't breathe right," she said tightly.

"What?"

"Heavy."

The biggest piece was holding her chest down, and it was too much for me to safely move on my own. "I'm going for help. I'll be right back," I said. She smiled back at me.

Two of our neighbors returned with me, and together the rest of the work went quickly. Laurel gasped and coughed as she came free, breathing deep. Nothing seemed broken, but she had cuts in several places. I got some first aid supplies from the kitchen and started working on her wounds. I'm not a medic, but everybody in the army learns something about first aid. It was, thankfully, enough.

I finally kissed her, when I was done. "Gods. For a moment I thought I'd lost you."

"I thought _you_ were the one who was supposed to get hurt all the time," she said. She looked at the mess sadly. "I guess I'm lucky to be alive. What happened? Vector doesn't get earthquakes."

"I don't know," I said. "Look. I need to go report in. I'm, uh, not supposed to be here."

"Oh, I don't think they're going to punish you for saving your wife."

"That's not what I mean. I can't really tell you, but…well, things didn't go well at Crescent Island. At all. I need to go report. I might not be back for a while."

"I'm going with you. And don't try to tell me to stay here, this might be our home but the rest of it could come down any time. In fact we should probably go outside."

In the end I let her come. Truth be told, I felt better keeping her in sight. We made for the Citadel, and mentally I prayed that I could, somehow, talk my way in to see Gestahl before I got arrested again.

o o o

"Out of the question," the Emperor's secretary said flatly. I faced him in the Emperor's antechamber. Laurel was with me, but she sat quietly against the inside wall. The outside wall was a single great glass window, affording a spectacular view of the city.

"Sir," I said, with as much respect as I could manage, "I _must_ see him, one way or another. He personally gave me a mission before I left for Crescent Island, I have vital information from that mission, and I have no one else I dare report to." It was true, in a sense. I was here to clear my own name, of course, but Gestahl also needed to know that Kefka had murdered general Leo against orders. If I could get Kefka executed instead of merely jailed, this time….

"I will convey your request at the earliest opportunity, but the Emperor is a busy man, and even if he wishes to see you, it will likely be several weeks."

"I don't have several weeks!" Depending on how the tribunal viewed my escape, days might be too long.

"Major, I'm going to have to ask you to go. You cannot see Emperor Gestahl today, and that is—"

"What is _that?_ " Laurel cut him off in a strangled voice that immediately got our attention.

I looked at her. "Dear, what's wrong?" She pointed out the window. I turned. So did the secretary.

The window faced eastward, to allow in the morning sun. Below us, Vector. Beyond that, farms and fields, roads leading out into the distance. Beyond that, the Eastern Mountains, stretching most of the way across the horizon.

And rising above those mountains was _something_. At first I thought I was looking at a tremendously ugly airship that, for whatever reason, had chosen to fly low over the city. That was silly. My second thought was _that's an island. Flying_. And that's what it looked like. A mass of dirt and bedrock, in the sky, hovering.

I didn't get the scale right until I noticed that the lowermost sections of it were obstructed by the mountains. It was _behind_ the mountains, as in further away. In my field of vision, it was half as wide as that entire mountain range. And, being beyond them, it had to be even larger than it appeared.

Not an island. An entire continent.

"It's rising," I said, quietly. "Of course. That earthquake." It clicked. The easternmost regions of our continent, mountainous and mostly uninhabited, were separated from civilization by a deep strait that cut all the way across. This _thing_ in the sky was about the right shape. It must have been torn free from its roots of stone by some unimaginable magic. Here, almost a thousand miles away, we felt it as an earthquake.

I was bemused. Awed. _In our pride we lay hands on power, and reshape the world,_ I thought with uncharacteristic poetry. _But in what image?_

Something else clicked, too. "He's out there, isn't he?" I asked the Emperor's secretary. "On that thing."

He frowned at me, then sighed. "I believe so. He left nearly a week ago for the Esper's Gate. It's out that way."

"Was Kefka with him?"

His face went flat. "The Emperor's business is his own, not yours."

 _"Was Kefka with him?"_ I roared, leaning over his desk, a hand going for my sword before I realized it wasn't there. He scrambled back from me. Laurel shrank against the wall. "Answer me, or I swear I'll kill you right here!" I moved around the desk after him.

"All right, all right," he said. "Kefka was supposed to meet him on the way. He can't come in the city right now, he's still officially a fugitive."

"You idiot," I said. "Is there any way to get a message up there, somehow?"

"What _is_ it that is so bloody important?" he said, exasperated.

"Kefka stabbed us in the back at Crescent Island! He killed his direct subordinates, almost killed me, and murdered General Leo directly against orders! Orders that nobody _knows_ about because Kefka's publicly disgraced, only I guess you already know Gestahl is still working with him so who cares? The Emperor _cannot wait any longer to deal with him_ , or he's going to be next and we'll have an Empire of Kefka the Insane!"

He gaped at my outburst. So did Laurel. I couldn't take the frustration any longer; I reached out and decked him. He hit the floor and stared up at me, trying to guard his face with his hands.

"Send a carrier pigeon, or one of those new flying magitek suits, or jump out of that window and flap your stupid arms if you have to! But get a message up there!"

I stormed out, almost slamming the door in Laurel's face as she tried to follow me. The hallway was empty. Actually, most of the Imperial Citadel was empty; it seemed the staff had concluded the same thing as Laurel earlier, that it was safer to be outside.

Laurel kept close, not speaking. I'm sure she was scared, but she held up well enough. I headed for the barracks. I had two things left to do and then I was done with this. First I went to the armory and got myself a sword, dagger, and a spare set of clothes. Any more would stick out. By the time I got to Command, I had calmed down. I was met there by a colonel named Murozis. I had met him before on several occasions, and I knew him indirectly as well. He had a reputation as calm and competent, and the rumor was that he would be promoted to general soon. He wasn't as well-liked as Leo, but he was well-respected.

"Yes?" he said as I entered the offices.

"I need to send a message," I said. "Up to the floating continent. And someone above me has to give the order, because I don't have the authority."

He blinked. "You need to _what?_ "

"I need one of the new air squadron magitek suits to carry a message, up there. To Emperor Gestahl."

His eyes narrowed. "How do you know _he's_ up there? Never mind. I can't do as you ask."

"You know, I just went through this with his secretary, and he ended up on the floor. I'm in a _very_ bad mood and right now I don't care if you outrank me."

Murozis raised an eyebrow. "A threat, major?"

"I'm already facing a tribunal that will probably execute me. Try me."

"What's the message?" Murozis asked. His expression was quizzical.

I spoke in a monotone: "It should read, 'Kefka turned on Leo and killed him at the island. He is totally insane now and I expect him to try and do the same to you very soon. Fair warning.'"

 _That_ got his attention. "Major, are you serious?"

"I am."

"I see. What's this about a tribunal?"

"I was working with Kefka on Gestahl's orders when he went nuts. Yes, I know he's supposed to be out of favor. Strange circumstances. But I can't prove any of it, and I can't prove that I wasn't complicit, and there's an entire squad's worth of witnesses that will say I was. Gestahl knows enough of the details to pardon me, but he isn't here and I'll hang before he gets back."

"You don't intend to wait to be arrested, I take it."

"Actually I was already arrested once. I got away."

"I ought to re-arrest you now, then. Oh, don't worry, I won't try it." He frowned darkly. "I believe you, for what it's worth. You don't seem like a liar, you have an exemplary record — yes, I've seen it — and we all know Kefka's a nut. But you misinterpreted me; the reason I can't send an airsuit is because they're not here. The whole squadron was dispatched to the east two days ago, on the Emperor's orders. I assume he wanted them to intercept anyone trying to approach that _thing_ up there. I wish he had told us what he had in mind."

"Me, too," I said bitterly. "What about a pigeon?"

"A pigeon wouldn't know where to go."

"Options?"

"I'll get some help and see. There might be prototypes or unfinished mechs at the Magitek Factory that could make it up there even if they can't fight. Or we could try to find and signal the existing squadron. That would take longer but it might be all we can do."

I found myself breathing easier. The colonel's reputation wasn't undeserved, it seemed. Those were both good ideas.

"As for you, you've delivered your message. Now, who arrested you?"

"Lieutenant Iolen."

"Another good officer. Excellent. I'll take him aside later. Now, I am ordering you to get out of Vector for two weeks."

"What?"

"So that you're not technically AWOL. You can't be brought to trial if you're not here."

"Ah. Thank you, sir."

"I'll put it in writing before you go." He gestured to Laurel. "Your wife, I assume. Will she be going with you?"

"No," I said. "Yes," she said over me, scowling.

Murozis chuckled. "I'll write you a requisition order for two chocobos then. You can argue about it on the way to the stables."

"Never mind," I sighed. "She'll win that fight. Do you even know how to ride, dear?"

"Not very well, but I'll manage," she said sweetly.

o o o

We headed out the north end of town a few hours later. It was late in the day, but I wasn't going to stay any longer than I had to. I had done my duty. Now I just wanted to get away from Vector. We were heading towards Tzen, but I didn't intend to go all the way there. Too many bad memories. There were several smaller villages along the way. We could pick one about a week out, stay for a few days, and then come back.

The Returner camp straddled the road between us and the wilderness. When they had come to make their attack, they landed at Tzen and approached from the north. That attack had never happened, of course. The Espers got here first. Well, I suppose they got what was coming to them in the end, if not the way I would have wanted.

I just hoped nobody in the camp had been told the truce was off. I'd forgotten about the camp, but I didn't want to ride back across the city again just to leave in another direction. We approached at a fast pace, but not so fast as to cause alarm. They had a checkpoint set up across the road. A guard greeted us. He was an older man, and his uniform appeared to have been patched out of whatever was on hand, but he behaved professionally enough.

"We're not here to make trouble, just traveling," I said after we gave our names, and I my rank. "I'm on leave, and we have family in Tzen." It seemed a thin excuse; who gets leave with a hostile army camped on the capital's doorstep? But the guard didn't seem to care much. One man and his wife were no threat, and it seemed the truce still held for now. He waved us through. Passing through the camp took about an hour. By the time we came out the other end, it was nearly sunset.

We pressed on anyway, until full dark, before making camp. It was a new thing for Laurel. She was a native of Vector, and I don't think she had slept on the ground in her whole life. She seemed to find the experience exciting. I just wanted to get to a village with an inn, myself. As a soldier I've had enough outdoor nights for two lifetimes.

A day passed. Two days. We spent a night in a tent, in the rain. That killed a bit of Laurel's enthusiasm. I listened to the thunder and wondered if my message had ever reached Gestahl, and what he and Kefka were doing now.

There was a village shortly before the end of the valley leading north from Vector, and we stayed at the inn there on the third night. It was a relief to both of us by then. Beyond that was the wide open plain stretching from the mountains all the way to Tzen. The road was nearly empty, and the ride would, if anything, be rather pleasant from here onward. But for the first time as the valley opened onto the plain I could clearly see the Floating Continent. It was out to the east, no longer obscured at all by the mountains. It leered at us from the horizon, and I shivered. Best not to think too hard about it. What would be, would be, and it was no use worrying about something I could no longer affect.

We rode onward. Within an hour it was fully in view. It had drifted further north, and looked different than the last time I had seen it. I slowed my chocobo to a stop.

Laurel pulled up beside me. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Look at that." I pointed. It seemed to be listing to one side, like an unbalanced sailing ship. Something about its appearance filled me with dread.

Then, as we watched, a visible chunk of it, who knows how large, tore free and began to fall. My stomach tightened. Something that huge, striking the ocean, would produce a tsunami such as the world had never seen. I mentally judged the distance from us to the shore. Hopefully it was far enough.

The falling rock shelf was followed by another. We watched, mesmerized. The first piece fell below the horizon, out of sight, but I knew that somewhere out there it had hit the water.

The wind was picking up, too.

"I don't know if that's good or bad," I said, pointing at the Continent. "But I don't want to be anywhere near it. This road runs too near the coast. Let's turn west." So we did. My chocobo whined as we left the road. I wondered if it sensed something I couldn't. I kept looking over my shoulder as we rode, at the Continent.

I was almost expecting the first tremors when they hit. Laurel's chocobo took it in stride. Mine, carrying a fair bit more weight, stumbled but didn't fall.

"Dismount!" I said. Laurel obeyed without asking why, and I was grateful for it. The quake did not fade away, as the one in Vector had. The ground shook lightly, but continuously.

Which way to go? We were away from the coast, at least. Were we better off on high ground? No, I thought. We turned northwest; I was aiming to get as far from the coast as possible, and as far from everything else, deeper into the plains. Open ground. There was nothing to fall on us there. Like mountains.

To the east, the Floating Continent had broken in half, with the two pieces drifting away from each other. A few independent chunks remained in between.

Beneath us, the ground suddenly _wrenched_. Laurel stumbled into me and we both fell down, her on top. We clung to the earth like a mother, but it must have been a poor one, for it beat us long and hard. And it _screamed_. It screamed forever, with a sound poets could never describe and saints could never bear.

Eventually, eventually, the ground's assault faded enough that I could let go of Laurel and sit up. She rolled to one side. She was still conscious, I thought, but dazed. I looked around, trying to get my bearings. I looked for the sun and found it. I looked south. The mountains weren't there.

Bewildered, I looked around. There were hills to the west. A body of water east of us, but it was an inland lake and the other side was visible. North and south, plains. Far to the north, nearly out of sight, another body of water. The ocean? I couldn't tell. I finally found what I was looking for to the southeast, but the mountain range was narrow, as if I was looking at it end-on.

Where was I? I hadn't moved.

Had everything else moved? How was that possible?

"Are we alive?" Laurel asked, confused.

"That might be a good questio—"

A sudden bang cut me off. I looked towards it and found myself facing those strange southeastern mountains again. They were there. But they looked _smaller_.

Another bang, and the ground lurched. This time I saw it. The mountains sank downward like nails struck by a god's hammer. Again, again. One peak shattered before my eyes, an avalanche pouring into the growing trench at their base.

"Oh my God," Laurel said.

I turned. The Floating Continent, too, had shattered. Shards of it fell from the sky in a cloud. But in the center, a great pillar remained. It moved steadily towards us and off to the south, as if with purpose.

"Oh my God," Laurel said again.

It was Kefka, I thought, as the world continued to go mad around me. Gestahl would never have done this. Rule the world, perhaps, as that was fitting. But not destroy it, not warp it into some unrecognizable thing. Which meant Gestahl was probably dead. And Kefka was alive, up there, perched over the world, looking down as he had over me and my companions on the night we attacked Thamasa. Like a dark god, he was watching, satisfied, laughing.

He won, after all. He won.

* * *

 **End**

* * *

 _As usual, you can find this piece in its original form at my site, along with author's notes. It's linked from my profile. Thanks for reading._


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